Lights, Camera.. Action with Peter Evers

The very first class of the creative solutions module ended up being a photography workshop which focused on the features and techniques of using light and cameras when capturing anything. This was so that we would be able to put these techniques into practice when lighting and placing the camera in a scene.

As ill prepared as I was with my lack of notebooks I acquired some sheets of paper and took notes through the first part of the workshop which was an introductory lecture that showed us the ropes. The lecture and workshop was taken by the Irish legendary photographer Peter Evers.

Lighting & Camera Fundamentals –

There are two fundamentals of a camera that consist of exposure and composition.

The constituent parts that make up the cameras settings are:

Aperture

Shutter speed

Sensitivity

Focal length

Exposure – Quantity of light reaching a photographic film determined by shutter speed and aperture.

Film Speed – The measure of a photographic films sensitivity to light determined by sensitometry and measured on various numerical scales.

Aperture – The iris that controls the quantity of light that reaches the sensor.

Shutter Speed – In photography shutter speed or exposure time.

The ideal settings and parameters in a film are shutter speed, aperture, frames per second (fps), ISO settings and 50th second shutter speed.

There are also filters available for the camera lens called neutral density filters which help to reduce the light.

Sensitivity – The amount of light we need.

Rule of thumb the smaller the iris is the less light it will take to fill the cup (ISO). An open iris will accommodate for the lack of light.

Fun Facts –

Cameras are a translation of human vision

You learn to see colour you are not born with the ability to just see it.

Human eyes have 2 sets of 40 degree lens that pan this is why a standard lens for a camera is 40 degrees.

Every human is legally blind for two hours of the day.

There are different types of lens available for particular shots such as wide angles lens, longer lens etc.

Resaprosity failure – Nature of exposure changes

When lighting you have to be aware of the purity light and the amount of light that is available. You can use more than one source of light and you can also use coloured or uncoloured light.

Focal Length – Stripping out the background seeing everything but focusing on one thing.

Longer lens – Camera shake is always going to be a problem when using a longer lens unless a tripod is used.

Wide angle lens – Barrel distortion becomes a problem.

There were a couple of things that Peter suggested we look at such as light intensity, hard & soft light, colour contrast, colour temperature, Scrim and the LAB colour language.

There were a few key features that Peter Evers also wen’t through with us through practical examples such as flood, spot lights, using a framelight, flagging & unflagging, Bouncing, Diffusing, Coverage, fill, and intensifying.

There were also a few photographers that peter recommend we look at such as Nick Knight and Annie eibovitz and her famous cinematography sets. Another artist Martin Parr was supposed to be coming in to give us a talk in the lecture theatre but couldn’t make it he photographs boring couples and food etc. Peter also suggested that we watch the film Dead Mans shoes if we hadn’t seen it already.

Shapes of Lights –

Strips

Spots

Rings

Strings

There are also angles of light such as backlighting, rim lighting, frontal lighting and side lighting. A technique used for created a venetian blind kind of effect is known as the GO-BO known as “go between” or “going before the optics”.

A film that I was interesting to find out which uses polarising is Bad Boys which uses a matte effect to counteract for the bald men.

Depth of Field – Consists of a few parameters which are proximity, the type of camera being used, focal length of the lens and aperture.

We were able to have some fun with the camera and play about with the lights and the shadows we then got to take some pictures and move the assets about to play about with the fundamentals of camera action here is some of the pictures of the guys messing around with the camera while I observed.